Shortstories

Predicaments

I realized that I did not know what it meant to be alive, I realized that I did not know what it meant to be a person. I tried not to let it show on my face; I tried to look relaxed and confident in the way I knew people were supposed to look but it just wasn’t working. The truth was leaking out of me – my mask had not just sprung a leak it had sprung a thousand leaks. My mask was a colander and the truth was leaking out of it in all directions. I call this Predicament A and it is one of the major predicaments, one of the more serious ones. There are other major predicaments of course – it’s just that I don’t find it very easy to talk about them. But I will try. Another of the major predicaments is when something bad is eating you, when something sinister is snacking on your essential energy. You’re a snack-box and the snacker is snacking on the delicious contents that are within you. The yummy yummy contents! That’s ‘Predicament B’. Predicament C is where you can’t stop trying to solve this big big problem that’s hanging over you – you can’t stop trying to solve it but you never can solve it and the reason you can’t ever solve it because the big big problem is you only you can’t see it. You think that the problem is out there and your frenzied attempts to fix it are eating you up but the problem isn’t ‘out there’ it’s in your head – you keep on projecting it out onto the world but actually the world is perfect it’s only you that’s the problem. That’s ‘Predicament C’. Predicament D is where you actually do realize that you’re the problem but you also realize that there’s nothing you can do about it because the problem is insoluble. You realize that you are a problem that can’t ever be made right – nothing can ever redeem you because you’re beyond redemption. That’s ‘Predicament D’. Life’s a bastard when you think about it isn’t it? Imagine if life were to hit you with all four predicaments all at the same time. How would you feel then? Or maybe one after another – bang, bang, bang, bang. Get a load of that says life. Suck on that, buddy. See how you like them apples. Then there’s Predicament E – I forgot about Predicament E. Predicament E is when it’s not just the case that you realize that the problem is you but that super-human agencies out there in the universe – perhaps even supernatural agencies – have realized that you are not just a problem, but that you’re evil, which is something that you may not have found out yet but soon will do, and these all-powerful agencies are planning to rid the universe of you because that’s the best thing to do. Or rather because it’s the only thing to do. You agree in theory that this is the best thing for everyone concerned but in practice you’re running the other way. In practice you’re running as fast as you can. Fear is making you run – you know deep down that you can never get away but you’re running anyway not because you hope to escape but because you’re just too scared not to. What really gets me though is that people don’t even know that these five predicaments exist – they think they’re having a bad day if they order some curtains on line and it turns out that the curtains don’t quite match the carpet. They get all upset because they dropped their iphone on the floor and the screen gets cracked. Or if someone looks at them funny in the street….